Blake studied him, noting the faint tremor in his hand, the tired resignation that looked too practiced to fake. “You’re staying behind.”
Thirteen nodded once. “Someone has to feed you intel. If I vanish, Laurel Tide goes dark. But if I’m still here…” He shrugged. “I can buy you time. Buy her time.”
The wind cut through Blake’s coat, sharp enough to sting, but his focus stayed locked on the man in front of him. “Why the sudden change of heart? People like you don’t grow consciences overnight.”
Thirteen met his gaze without flinching. “People like me don’t usually have daughters either.”
The words hit harder than they should have. Blake felt something twist behind his ribs, a flash of the photo on Thirteen’s phone—wide eyes, dark braids, fear no child should know. It pulled at the same place that had kept him up half the night, watching Vivian breathe under that threadbare blanket, trying not to remember the way her mouth had felt under his.
He shoved the memory down where it couldn’t get in the way.
“The girl in the video,” he said.
Thirteen nodded. “Her name’s Mara. They took her a few weeks ago.”
They took her because she fit the profile Laurel Tide targets—kids who slip through cracks, whose disappearances don’t immediately raise alarms.”
“If you’re so high up, why don’t you get her out?” Blake asked.
“I can’t risk them discovering she’s mine. Heck, I didn’t know until a few weeks ago. You’re the only two who know that fact.”
Blake exhaled slowly, breath fogging in the air. For a second, the soldier in him understood—the helplessness, the guilt that burrowed under the skin and stayed there. “And this is your penance.”
“This is my choice,” Thirteen said, shoulders slumped for a second before he stood like dangerous enemy again.
“Aren’t you worried what’ll happen to her even if she makes it out?” Vivian asked in a tone that sounded less agent and more motherly.
Thirteen rubbed a hand down his face, the motion rough, almost punishing. “Anything is better than her future with me. I wasn’t good enough for her mother. Rochelle… she saw that long before I did.” His eyes drifted past Vivian and Blake, unfocused, as if the memory was happening on the far side of the room. “She didn’t tell me about Mara until weeks before she died. Weeks. And not because she didn’t trust me—because shedid. She knew exactly who I was. What I wasn’t.” A hollow laugh scraped out of him, short and joyless. “I’d never be good enough for her either. Best gift I can give that kid is distance. Miles of it. An ocean, if I’m lucky.”
“You don’t know that,” Vivian said, but Thirteen shook his head.
“I never stood a chance at her age. I know what growing up in my shadow would do. I won’t let history repeat itself.”
For the first time since they’d met him, Thirteen looked… small. Not weak, but worn down by the weight of a life he’d never fixed and couldn’t outrun.
His gaze stayed far away for a long moment—somewhere in the past, somewhere with Rochelle, somewhere he’d never repair.
Then he snapped his chin up, sealing the emotion behind steel.
“You’ll need to move by nightfall,” he said, voice snapping back to tactical precision. “There’s a patrol every six hours along the inlet road. They’ll widen the perimeter by evening. You stay past sundown, you’ll freeze or be found.”
All the softness vanished—the man closing the door on himself before anyone else could. He turned toward the snowmobile.
Blake’s voice stopped him. “Why trust us? You don’t even know if we’ll keep our word.”
Thirteen half-turned, smirk faint but real. “Because you’re you,” he said simply. “The one who won’t quit even when it costs him everything. And you won’t let a little girl be abused by the bullies. And her…” His eyes flicked to Vivian. “She’s the one thing you wouldn’t risk losing.”
The words landed like a punch. Blake didn’t look Viv’s way. Couldn’t. Not when the memory of her lips still felt too close, too warm against the cold.
Thirteen pulled on his goggles and started the engine.
And then he was gone—swallowed by the storm, the growl of the snowmobile fading into white.
Blake stood there for a long moment, the silence pressing in on him. The cold bit deep, but it wasn’t the weather that left him unsteady. It was her—standing beside him, cheeks flushed from the wind, eyes bright and alive.
He tore his gaze away before he made another mistake. “We move in thirty,” he said, his voice low. “Grab what you can carry.”
She searched his face. “Do you believe him?”
